Road Test: Mazda6 Luxury Sports

By Feann Torr - 13/12/05

Within the increasingly popular mid-sized car kingdom the Mazda6, for a short time, was at the top of the food chain, and understandably so.

Smart-casual styling, a willing engine, good interior fitout and ample space contributed to its instant success upon replacing the dated and droopy 626.

But the predators were lurking, and before too long Japanese rival Honda had marked its territory with pragmatic prowess, the Accord Euro taking a bite out of the Mazda6's hide.

Evolution seemed to be the only way for the once-mighty Mazda6 to claw back its territory, and naturally it has adapted to its habitat that spans urbanised areas, highways and trendy shopping strips. With the second generation Mazda6 on the streets, the tides may be about turn for one of Japan's most celebrated automakers.

Will the hunted become the hunter? Will these annoying animal kingdom metaphors ever end? There's only one way to find out...

Mazda's suspension engineers have managed to work the best of both worlds into the Mazda6, giving occupants a smooth ride and crisp handling

Drive: 4/5

Not hard to drive at all - that's my first impression after initially steering the Mazda6. Some cars you step inside and have trouble with the throttle's sensitivity, or a heavy clutch, or a million other minutiae.

But not this one - it was very well behaved and does as it is asked without any hullabaloo.

Ride is very good. For the sports model it's been tuned remarkably well; it will happily build lateral g-forces when accelerating through corners, gripping nicely with the large 17-inch wheels, yet it manages more than a modicum of comfort in the everyday pilgrimage to work that entails the often incoherent traffic light waltz through suburbia.

The low profile Potenza RE010 (215/45) tyres will reveal weak spots where the road surface has been seriously neglected (deep potholes and the like) but I can report that it offers a good balance between ride and handling, living up to both its 'sports' and 'luxury' monikers.

Front end push does creep into the equation at times when you take the car through a set of fast corners, but you have to be pushing fairly determinedly for understeer to cock up your line through a bend.

All told, I was impressed at the balance afforded by the FWD Mazda. It's not quite as level headed as its major rival, the Accord Euro, but it's not far off mark. And I think it's also indicative of how FWD vehicles are being engineered these days - that is with experience and understanding. There used to be a time where most FWD vehicles were expected to exhibit understeer, sometimes appallingly, and that was the price you paid for the 'safe' option.

These days FWD vehicles, from the Mitsu 380 to the Mazda6 on test, show just how much fun can be had when the power hits the front wheels.

The Mazda6 keeps body roll under control for the most part, rarely letting it dominate proceedings, and the gearing has been sensibly applied in the 6-speed manual we tested (more on this later). The steering is on the light side, which suits the car's personality, and offers adequate levels of feedback, plus the fairly small leather tiller feels nice under hand, but is chock-o-block with buttons.

I'm all for auxiliary controls on the steering wheel to keep hands where they should be in case of the unexpected, but this is getting close to too busy (volume, mode, change stations, cruise control) for me. Still, I only had a week with it, and most people will spend a lot more time than that, so adapting to the plethora of buttons will no doubt become second nature after a time.

In everyday use the brakes (280mm rear, 274mm front) do a terrific job of contradicting the vehicle's speed, but when you start pushing the chassis, they start to droop a little. Pedal feel did wane on a hot day spent driving through the Yarra Valley in Victoria, and needs to be pumped harder to get results, and they lose a touch of stopping power as they heat up.

Engine: 3/5

The gearing has been synchronised with the 2.3-litre 4-banger quite agreeably where the well-spaced ratios almost hide the engine's lack of twist: it'll get up and go in the first three gears, providing you keep the tacho needle swinging high and hard, while @ 100km/h it'll tick over at just 2750rpm in 6th gear. At this engine speed it digests naff all fuel thanks to VVT, 4-valves and a kerb weight of only 1380kg.

It's not too shabby in terms of fuel consumption, drinking 8.8 litres of premium petrol per 100 kilometres. We managed to cover many more kays than we would have expected on one tank, but then 64 litres isn't to be sniffed at.

Compared to the Accord Euro the MZR engine isn't quite as willing, and this is evidenced in the specs: 122kW versus 140kW. But that's not to say it's not a fun powerplant to wind up and down.

Peak power hits @ 6500rpm and it'll rev another 500rpm beyond this, giving good scope for holding gears through corners.

The gear lever in the new 6-speed manual gearbox shifts between gates fairly softly, which isn't a bad thing, but means manhandling the shift lever won't result in quicker changes. It's all about smooth changes for maximum returns here.

The gearbox is, however, very easy-to-use. Even staunch automatic drivers will find it simple to operate and it's not intimidating either, where something like the 6-speed Tremec gearbox from the high torque V8 Holdens and Falcons can be thanks to hard and heavy shifts. The clutch is fairly light too, which is logical when you're only pumping 207Nm of torque at the crank.

The engine doesn't reach its full potential until higher engine speeds, and low down in the rev range it sometimes feels a bit sluggish. But this argument does tend to fall somewhat flat in the face of the aforementioned six cogs of the manual gearbox, the half-dozen of which must have been hand-picked by some very cluey Japanese engineers.

Though it would have been nice to see a bit more power from the MZR engine, the new manual gearbox improves performance over the previous model, and will keep the Mazda6 singing happily until its replacement arrives in the next few years.

Exterior: 4.5/5

The Mazda6's proportions and symmetry please the eye no end

The supple leather seats combine with a tasteful centre console and legible instruments, providing the Mazda6 with just as much style inside as out

One area where I believe the Mazda6 makes up for its slight lack of power compared to the Subaru and Honda mid-sized offerings is in the looks department.

Since its inception the Mazda6 presented an aesthetically pleasing vehicle that looked great from any angle, and even today the car still looks fresh.

The 2005 model gets a slightly new grille, front air dam and fog light surrounds, and these minor adjustments do nothing to harm the 6's intrinsic visual appeal. Our test car features a carbon grey colour and it looked great, casually contrasting with the light grey alloy wheels.

While the front end is all business, with its sleek headlight clusters and deep central airdam, the lift-back/hatch bodystyle seems to suit the car well. Better looking than the sedan version? Yes, I think so. The discreet spoiler at the rear, the twin pipes, subtly flared wheel arches and of course the ten spoke 17-inch alloy wheels combine with the hatch's bodyshape smoothly, and the overall integrated look is enough for me to stand back and smile in admiration.

Interior: 3.5/5

Very nice - a good place to be. And not a lot of noise penetrates the cabin either, which I really liked. This luxury sports model is much nicer and more upmarket than I'd expect from a Japanese vehicle, which is perhaps why they are currently romping all over American and European vehicles at the moment.

In general, most interior applications are highly functional and intuitive, though I wasn't enamoured with the circular air vents: they clicked into position a little harshly when shut completely. Call me a fairy, but I prefer softer levels of tactility in these things.

The seats are nice and welcoming, the dashboard is quite elongated (though this isn't a bad thing - more an interesting talking point for interior designers) and I really warmed to the crimson-coloured back lighting that permeates controls and the instrument cluster at night. The dials look good too - tacho on the left, speedo on the right - surrounded by faux chrome that seems to be mandatory on any automobile that contains a hint of luxury these days.

Climate control air-conditioning and cruise control are welcome features in the Mazda6 Luxury Sports model, and generally speaking I reckon the interior has more in common with a modern Subaru than a Honda, and though I personally like Honda's ergonomics better, I found very few problems with the Mazda6's inner sanctum.

The slim line radio display works really well - succinct I'd call it - and the trip computer isn't too bad either. Better than none at all. There's also a sunroof that comes as standard with the $40k sports luxury model and electric everything simplifies many processes too, such as window winding, mirror and even front seat adjustment (complete with three pre-sets).

The 6-stacker CD stereo by Bose was also highly impressive, able to kick out righteous degrees of volume, vibrating not only the rear view mirror, but also the two wing mirrors at one stage. And all this without distortion. It consists of a 200W Bose premium audio system with seven speakers (one of which is a subwoofer for driving bass).

Fit and finish is also of an above average standard, and though the dash plastics are a bit hard and would probably bruise your noggin if you bonked into it under emergency braking as a passenger, it is far from bog-standard. Roof lining is something I don't normally critique a car on, but for some reason I noticed (and liked) it in the Mazda6.

Vanity mirrors without their own illumination is a bit lax for something purporting to offer sports luxury, but beyond this and the clicky air vents I found very little wrong with how Mazda has crafted the interior of its big-selling mid-sizer.

Boot space in the lift-back/hatch is plentiful, and when the rear bench seats are folded away the available room is vast. Better yet, the seats fold uniformly flat with the floor, making the available space more manageable when loading a bicycle or a huge Scalextric slot car racing box.

Overall: 4/5

When it comes to purchasing a mid-sized car, the options are considerably better today than they used to be, and you really can't go wrong with any of the Japanese mob these days.

For most buyers it'll probably come down to brand allegiance or which model appeals most to your own personal sense of style - and on that latter point I think the Mazda6 has its rivals beat. The sports hatch with multi spoke 17-inch alloy wheels sits on the road with such confidence, thanks to its sleek lines and contemporary extremities, that it's a wonder the car wasn't conceived in 2005, rather than 2002.

It's not quite as balanced as the Honda Accord Euro in the handling stakes, and the Liberty with its AWD transmission has higher levels of grip - but that's not to say the Mazda6 lags behind. Not at all. It is in fact a very solid performer on the road, breathing down its rivals necks, and one could argue that the Mazda6 MPS with its turbocharged AWD powertrain even the odds. And it'd be a tough argument to rebut.

At the end of the day, Mazda needn't have tinkered too much with its Mazda6, as it had a very well-adjusted personality to begin with, and in everyday operation is rarely prone to unexpected outbursts. The changes that were made to the '05 model make the mid-sized car an even better proposition, and while the hunted may not have become the hunter just yet, this is one animal that was highly evolved to begin with.